1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus performing a series of processing such as thermal processing, chemical processing and the like on a thin-plate substrate (hereinafter simply referred to as xe2x80x9csubstratexe2x80x9d) such as a semiconductor substrate or a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display.
The present invention also relates to a substrate processing apparatus having a built-in inspection part for performing a prescribed inspection such as measurement of the thickness of a resist film, for example, on a substrate.
2. Description of the Background Art
A substrate processing apparatus is employed for performing various processing on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display, a glass substrate for a photomask or a glass substrate for an optical disk. In a process for manufacturing a semiconductor device, for example, a substrate processing apparatus formed by unitizing the respective ones of a series of processing and integrating a plurality of processing units with each other is employed.
In the substrate processing apparatus, a transport robot transports the substrate between a heating part for heating on the substrate, a cooling part for cooling the substrate and a chemical processing part for applying chemical processing to the substrate, and the series of substrate processing are performed in prescribed order. Such a substrate processing apparatus is generally set in a clean room managed in temperature, humidity and particles.
FIG. 7 is a conceptual plan view typically showing exemplary arrangement of processing units in a conventional substrate processing apparatus. The substrate processing apparatus shown in FIG. 7 has processing parts 110 and 120 and a transport area 130. A rotary application unit (spin coater) 111 applying a processing liquid to substrates and a rotary developing unit (spin developer) 112 developing the selectively exposed resist on the substrates are arranged on the processing part 110 in parallel with each other.
A plurality of stages of heating units (hot plates) HP and cooling units (cooling plates) CP for heating and cooling the substrates respectively are arranged on the processing part 120. A transport unit 131 for transferring the substrates is provided on the transport area 130. An introduction/discharge apparatus (indexer) 140 adapted to introduce, store and discharge substrates W is arranged on single sides of the processing parts 110 and 120 and the transport area 130.
The introduction/discharge apparatus 140 comprises a plurality of cassettes 141 storing the substrates W and a transfer robot 142 introducing and discharging the substrates W. The transfer robot 142 of the introduction/discharge apparatus 140 moves along arrow U, takes out the substrates W from the cassettes 141 for transferring the same to a transport unit 131, and receives the substrates W having been subjected to the series of processing from the transport unit 131 for returning the same to the cassettes 141. The transport unit 131 transports the substrates W along arrow S in the transport area 130, introduces/discharges the substrates W into/from the aforementioned respective processing units, and transfers/receives the substrates W to/from the transfer robot 142.
The diameters of substrates are recently increasingly enlarged for improving productivity, such that substrates having diameters exceeding 300 mm are also in the process of handling. If the substrates are increased in size, the processing parts for processing the same are also increased in size, to result in size increase of the overall substrate processing apparatus as well as the occupation area (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cfootprintxe2x80x9d) occupied by the substrate processing apparatus in plane. In consideration of management of the clean room, however, such size increase of the substrate processing apparatus is unpreferable.
This is because the environmental maintenance cost is increased when the footprint of the substrate processing apparatus is increased. Specific equipment such as a hygrothermal control unit or a filter is required in order to retain a clean internal atmosphere of the substrate processing apparatus for maintaining the clean room. Thus, the material cost and the maintenance cost for the filter or the like are disadvantageously increased. In particular, a high-priced chemical filter for coping with chemically amplified resist or the like may recently be required as a processing solution, and hence the material cost and the maintenance cost are remarkably increased if the area for using the chemical filter is increased.
Further, a single substrate processing apparatus recently contains a number of processing units for efficiently processing a large number of substrates. Therefore, a substrate processing apparatus allowing effective use of a space in the clean room is awaited. In order to suppress increase of the footprint of the substrate processing apparatus, therefore, a substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking the aforementioned processing units upward in a multistage manner is proposed and now in the process of usage. Consequently, the footprint is reduced.
For example, a conventional substrate processing apparatus formed by vertically arranging all of an introduction/discharge apparatus and respective processing units is proposed. Further, another conventional substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking respective processing units in a processing part is proposed.
In such a substrate processing apparatus formed by stacking respective processing units in a multistage manner, the height is increased in response to the degree of stacking, although increase of the footprint can be suppressed. As the height of the substrate processing apparatus is increased, the height of a transport robot transporting substrates to the respective processing parts is also increased, leading to unstable substrate transportation. Therefore, the stacking is limited.
On the other hand, as is well known, a product such as a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal display is manufactured by performing a series of processing such as cleaning, application of resist, exposure, development, etching, formation of an interlayer isolation film, thermal processing, dicing and the like on the aforementioned substrate. In order to maintain the quality of such a semiconductor product, it is important to inspect the substrate after a collective process of the aforementioned processing for confirming the quality thereof.
For example, a substrate processing apparatus such as a coater and a developer performing application of resist and development generally performs an inspection such as line width measurement of a pattern on the substrate in the final step of development. At this time, the substrate to be inspected is temporarily discharged from the substrate processing apparatus and introduced into a dedicated inspection apparatus to be inspected therein. The result of the inspection is fed back to the substrate processing apparatus, which in turn adjusts various processing conditions.
In the aforementioned conventional method, however, the substrate to be inspected is temporarily discharged from the substrate processing apparatus and introduced into the inspection apparatus provided on another position to be subjected to the inspection, and hence it takes time to complete the inspection. Even if a defective substrate is caused due to a problem in processing conditions, a long time is required to prove the defect by the inspection and substrate processing progresses in bulk under erroneous processing conditions before the result of the inspection is fed back. In this case, it follows that defective substrates are caused in bulk. In particular, the unit cost for the recent substrates of xcfx86300 m is so high that significant loss results when defective substrates are caused in bulk.
Therefore, the assignee of the present invention has proposed a technique capable of quickly feeding back the result of an inspection by connecting a substrate processing apparatus and an inspection apparatus with each other inline and reducing the time required for completing the inspection.
In the aforementioned conventional inline system, however, the inspection apparatus is externally connected to the substrate processing apparatus, and hence the footprint of the apparatus is disadvantageously increased.
In the conventional inline system, further, the inspection apparatus projects outward from the substrate processing apparatus to result in a complicated shape, and it is difficult to arrange a large number of device groups in the clean room. Therefore, a dead space is caused in the clean room to disadvantageously increase the running cost for a reason similar to the above.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus for processing a substrate. According to the present invention, the apparatus comprising: a) an indexer portion comprising a downside structure comprising a transfer robot for transferring a substrate from/to a carrier capable to hold a plurality of substrates, and an upside structure defined above the downside structure and comprising upside processing sections of different types horizontally separated from each other and operable to apply processing to the substrate; and b) a processing portion comprising an arrangement of processing units for applying a series of processing to the substrate transferred from the transfer robot, and a transport robot for transporting the substrate between the arrangement of processing units.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the transport robot is operable to access to not only the arrangement of processing units but also the upside processing sections.
Preferably, the upside processing sections comprises a first section for applying a first dry-type processing to the substrate, and a second section for applying a second dry-type processing to the substrate.
The first section may be a thermal section including a plurality of thermal processing units, and the second section may be an optical section including an edge exposure unit for exposing an edge of the substrate.
In an aspect of the present invention, an apparatus for processing a substrate, comprising: a) an indexer portion comprising a downside structure comprising a transfer robot for transferring a substrate from/to a carrier capable to hold a plurality of substrates, and an upside structure defined above the downside structure and comprising an inspection section operable to inspect the substrate; and b) a processing portion comprising an arrangement of processing units for applying a series of processing to the substrate transferred from the transfer robot, and a transport robot for transporting the substrate between the arrangement of processing units.
Preferably, a plane area of the upside structure projected onto a horizontal plane is included in a plane area of the downside structure projected onto the horizontal plane.
Preferably, the upside structure is provided in a location out of a range in which the transfer robot moves for transferring substrate between the carrier and the processing portion.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the inspection section includes at least one of: a resist thickness measurement unit for measuring thickness of resist formed on the substrate; a pattern line width measurement unit for measuring line width of lines formed on the substrate; a pattern superposition measurement for measuring superposition of circuit patterns formed on the substrate; and a macro defect inspection for detecting macro defect on the substrate.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus reducible in height while attaining reduction of an occupation area.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a substrate processing apparatus having a function capable of inspecting a substrate without increasing the footprint.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.